Side Effects (2013)

Steven Soderbergh’s (apparent) final big-screen bow takes on big pharma and the need for Americans to dope up to get through the day, be it anti-depressants, anxiety pills, uppers, downers, or whatever. And what of the “Side Effects”? Limp libido? Exhaustion? Murderous sleep-walking fit? That’s the ticket here as a married couple (Channing Tatum and Rooney Mara) rocked by hubby’s prison stint for Wall Street sins are reunited only to see the wife slip off her plates after an apparent suicide attempt. Caught in the middle of all this, taking money from on high and prescribing pills to the low, is Jude Law as a psychiatrist, who begins Boy Scout and becomes … less so. I can’t give away anything more, because Soderbergh and writer Scott Z. Burns (both of “Contagion”) take a turn that hit me, well, like a drug at first -- euphoric love, but then a quick and lowly crash as I contemplated all that I saw. How not to spill the pills? Let me say this: The ugly ridiculous denouncement is Family Research Council approved. Pure 1950s. Got it? Mara is great. Tatum, ehh. Catherine Zeta-Jones plays another head shrink, and Pacinos the scenery. B- 

Rock of Ages (2012)

Worst fuckin’ episode of “Glee” I ever watched. And it lacks anyone half as cool as Chris Colfer. Blockbuster wannabe “Rock of Ages” tosses Tom Cruise, Alec Baldwin, Russell Brand, Bryan Cranston, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Paul Giamatti, plus two shiny youths -- Julianne Hough and Diego Boneta –- in an insipid mix-tape, mashed-up, lip-sync heavy rock story (sound familiar?) about fame and love that leans slightly more dangerous than “Bye Bye Birdie.” If “Birdie” were set in 1987. That’s the year “Ages,” based on a Broadway hit likely snipped of its balls on its way to the screen, takes place, when Poison, Def Leppard, and Jon Bon Jovi ruled MTV, radio, and record stores. Tone deaf from frame one with a sing-along Night Ranger bus ride, “Ages” sock hops between celebrating rock n’ roll big hair hedonism and giving a mocking F.U. finger to anyone who longs for vinyl records. Not that it matters. Our rock stars here drink, but never get drunk. Flirt and strip, but never screw. Drugs? No. Never. This is Wal-Mart rock, scrubbed clean for the kids who once listened to Quiet Riot, but now vote Romney, and party in PG-13 style. D+